The Evolution of Classroom Technology

Classrooms have come a long way. There’s been an exponential growth in educational technology advancement over the past few years. From overhead projectors to iPads, it’s important to understand not only what’s coming next but also where it all started.

We’ve certainly come a long way but some things seem hauntingly similar to many years ago. For example, Thomas Edison said in 1925 that “books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.” I’m pretty sure this is exactly what people are saying these days about the iPad.

Also in 1925, there were “schools of the air” that delivered lessons to millions of students simultaneously. Scroll down to find out how that worked (hint: it wasn’t by using the Internet!)

Here’s a brief look at the evolution of classroom technology. Do you have a piece of technology that you think should be included? Tweet @edudemic or let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to add it to the timeline! **Updated to include items suggested in the comments! Videotapes, Pens, Copiers, and more!**

c. 1650 – The Horn-Book

Wooden paddles with printed lessons were popular in the colonial era. Perhaps this is where fraternities got the idea? On the paper there was usually the alphabet and a religious verse which children would copy to help them learn how to write.

c. 1850 – 1870 – Ferule

This is a pointer and also a corporal punishment device. Seems like both this and the Horn-Book had dual purposes in terms of ‘educating’ the youths of that era.

1870 – Magic Lantern

The precursor to a slide projector, the ‘magic lantern’ projected images printed on glass plates and showed them in darkened rooms to students. By the end of World War I, Chicago’s public school system had roughly 8,000 lantern slides.

c. 1890 – School Slate

Used throughout the 19th century in nearly all classrooms, a Boston school superintendent in 1870 described the slate as being “if the result of the work should, at any time, be found infelicitous, a sponge will readily banish from the slate all disheartening recollections, and leave it free for new attempts.’

c. 1890 – Chalkboard

Still going strong to this day, the chalkboard is one of the biggest inventions in terms of educational technology.

c. 1900 – Pencil

Just like the chalkboard, the pencil is also found in basically all classrooms in the U.S. In the late 19th century, mass-produced paper and pencils became more readily available and pencils eventually replaced the school slate.

c. 1905 – Stereoscope

At the turn of the century, the Keystone View Company began to market stereoscopes which are basically three-dimensional viewing tools that were popular in homes as a source of entertainment. Keystone View Company marketed these stereoscopes to schools and created hundreds of images that were meant to be used to illustrate points made during lectures.

c. 1925 – Film Projector

Similar to the motion-picture projector, Thomas Edison predicted that, thanks to the invention of projected images, “books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.”

c. 1925 – Radio

New York City’s Board of Education was actually the first organization to send lessons to schools through a radio station. Over the next couple of decades, “schools of the air” began broadcasting programs to millions of American students.

c. 1930 – Overhead Projector

Initially used by the U.S. military for training purposes in World War II, overhead projectors quickly spread to schools and other organizations around the country.

c. 1940 – Ballpoint Pen

While it was originally invented in 1888, it was not until 1940 that the ballpoint pen started to gain worldwide recognition as being a useful tool in the classroom and life in general. The first ballpoint pens went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York City on 29 October 1945 for US$9.75 each. This pen was widely known as the rocket in the U.S. into the late 1950s.

c. 1940 – Mimeograph

Surviving into the Xerox age, the mimeograph made copies by being hand-cranked. Makes you appreciate your current copier at least a little bit now, huh?

c. 1950 – Headphones

Thanks to theories that students could learn lessons through repeated drills and repetition (and repeated repetition) schools began to install listening stations that used headphones and audio tapes. Most were used in what were dubbed ‘language labs’ and this practice is still in use today, except now computers are used instead of audio tapes.

c. 1950 – Slide Rule

William Oughtred and others developed the slide rule in the 17th century based on the emerging work on logarithms by John Napier. Before the advent of the pocket calculator, it was the most commonly used calculation tool in science and engineering. The use of slide rules continued to grow through the 1950s and 1960s even as digital computing devices were being gradually introduced; but around 1974 the electronic scientific calculator made it largely obsolete and most suppliers left the business.

1951 – Videotapes

What would school be without videotapes? (Thanks to Jaume in the comments for reminding me about this one!) The electronics division of entertainer Bing Crosby’s production company, Bing Crosby Enterprises (BCE), gave the world’s first demonstration of a videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951. Developed by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson since 1950, the device gave what were described as “blurred and indistinct” images, using a modified Ampex 200 tape recorder and standard quarter-inch (0.6 cm) audio tape moving at 360 inches (9.1 m) per second. A year later, an improved version, using one-inch (2.6 cm) magnetic tape, was shown to the press, who reportedly expressed amazement at the quality of the images, although they had a “persistent grainy quality that looked like a worn motion picture”.

c. 1957 – Reading Accelerator

With an adjustable metal bar that helped students tamp down a page, the reading accelerator was a simple device designed to help students read more efficiently. Personally, this looks like a torture device and is probably the least portable thing to bring along with a book. Is turning the page of a book or holding a book really that difficult?

c. 1957 – Skinner Teaching Machine

B. F. Skinner, a behavioral scientist, developed a series of devices that allowed a student to proceed at his or her own pace through a regimented program of instruction.

c. 1958 – Educational Television

By the early sixties, there were more than 50 channels of TV which included educational programming that aired across the country.

1959 – Photocopier

Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959, and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines. The prevalence of its use is one of the factors that prevented the development of the paperless office heralded early in the digital revolution[citation needed].Photocopying is widely used in business, education, and government. There have been many predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obsolete as information workers continue to increase their digital document creation and distribution, and rely less on distributing actual pieces of paper.

c. 1960 – Liquid Paper

A secretary made this white liquid in her kitchen and sold the company to Gillette for about $50 million. The rest is (redacted) history!

1965 – Filmstrip Viewer

A precursor to the iPad perhaps, this filmstrip viewer is a simple way to allow individual students watch filmstrips at their own pace.

c. 1970 – The Hand-Held Calculator

The predecessor of the much-loved and much-used TI-83, this calculator paved the way for the calculators used today. There were initial concerns however as teachers were slow to adopt them for fear they would undermine the learning of basic skills.

1972 – Scantron

The Scantron Corporation removed the need for grading multiple-choice exams. The Scantron machines were free to use but the company made money by charging for their proprietary grading forms. Sneaky stuff.

1980 – Plato Computer

Public schools in the U.S. averaged about one computer for every 92 students in 1984. The Plato was one of the most-used early computers to gain a foothold in the education market. Currently, there is about one computer for every 4 students.

1985 – CD-ROM Drive

A single CD could store an entire encyclopedia plus video and audio. The CD-ROM and eventually the CD-RW paved the way for flash drives and easy personal storage.

1985 – Hand-Held Graphing Calculator

The successor to the hand-held calculator (see above), the graphing calculator made far more advanced math much easier as it let you plot out points, do long equations, and play ‘Snake’ as a game when you got bored in class.

c. 1999 – Interactive Whiteboard

The chalkboard got a facelift with the whiteboard. That got turned into a more interactive system that uses a touch-sensitive white screen, a projector, and a computer. Still getting slowly rolled out to classrooms right now, betcha didn’t know they were first around in 1999! (I didn’t know that, at least)

2005 – iClicker

There are many similar tools available now, but iClicker was one of the first to allow teachers to be able to quickly poll students and get results in real time.

2006 – XO Laptop

The ‘One Laptop Per Child’ computer was built so it was durable and cheap enough to sell or donate to developing countries. It’s an incredible machine that works well in sunlight, is waterproof, and much more. Learn more.

2010 – Apple iPad

Just like the original school slate, could the iPad bring Thomas Edison’s statement to life? Could the iPad make it so “scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.” Only time will tell.

The insurance industry had a cheaper, easier to use alternative to the Skinner machine – text books with the answers obscured by red and revealed by looking at them thru a red filter. Fast, easy, cheap.

Bob Spence

April 18, 2011 at 7:42 pm

Thomas Edison's statement in 1925 was of course very visionary, and its reality seems closer with technologies such as augmented reality.

But I think it's worth noting that in 1912 Edward L Thorndike in his book "Education" wrote: "If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print".

I'm looking forward to how the reality of Edison's vision will unfold.

Chris

April 18, 2011 at 8:49 pm

Hi, I love this. I htink the slide rule, approximately 1970’s was one of the precursors to the scientific calculators which are now used, not sure if they were used in schools, but were definitely used in TAFE

Cheers
Chris

Greg

April 19, 2011 at 6:17 am

Actually my dad used the slide rule in his day… which takes it back to the 1950's!

empathiceducation

July 22, 2011 at 1:26 pm

I remember using a slide rule in Chemistry in the late 1970's. Thankfully by the time I took chem and physics in college-TI had come through with a much more user friendly calculator!

Frank Crawford

April 19, 2011 at 5:05 am

Great pics and timeline. The narrative shows clearly how you can change the 'technology' while the 'technology of education' stays the same. You can still see interactive whiteboards being used as slates. So much innovation, so little change. The 'technology' will only change the 'technology of education' when responsibility for learning and using the 'technology' is given over to the users. Does this feel a bit like disrupting treacle?

@ greg; yeah the advent of OCR technology came from the photo copier, Ray Kurzweil and his team invented the Xerox copy and went on to synthesize a voice to read it out loud which gave us Text to Speech software such as the Kurzweil 3000 of course.

Jaume

April 19, 2011 at 9:50 am

How about the viodeotapes (Betamax, VHS…) and DVD?

Edudemic

April 19, 2011 at 9:53 am

VERY good point Rosa, thanks!

Edudemic

April 19, 2011 at 9:54 am

Hey all! I'm going to add as many of your technologies as possible to this post today. Thanks!

Great list. As educators, in regard to tech integration, we focus too much on the what and lose sight of the why we use new and different technologies. It is amazing to think that the ferule was a part of student learning.

I started teacihng in 1962 and used virtually all of these in the ensuing 46 years. My addition? The highlighter, from Japan in 1962: check any post-secondary library, and it won't take you long to find those yellowed-over passages in many a book. And yes, what about the "textbook", quite different from the hornbook?

Wow, what an amazing article! I have started a blog on the same topic: http://www.retroedtech.com
I would mention that the mimeograph machine actually dates from the start of the century, I have an early one in my collection.
I think the pen deserves a few more mentions, both the fountain pen, the intro of plastic cartridge, and finally and introduction of ballpoint pen.
– Mimeograph machine from the start of the 19th Century: http://www.retroedtech.com/2011/04/mimeograph-mac…
– What about the old filmstrip projectors? I have two types which I'll get up onto the blog
– The laserdisk had its moment in the sun
– The typewriter?

You forgot to include one of Edison's favorite inventions – the phonograph. Certainly by the beginning of the 20th century, talking machines were being used, not only for music appreciation, but for language instruction….

Really interesting and well presented. The school exercise book must deserve a mention, and how about Times Tables and Log Tables? I remember using a slide rule at school until 1976, and the novelty of a boy from USA in about 75/76 with a pocket calculator which nobody thought would catch on much. By 1978 when I started at college, I had my own one! I still have a slide rule which is a thing of mystery to modern students.

More recently how about the Virtual Learning Environment? I'm afraid I don't have dates for any of these.

Equally I'm not sure if the ring binder and loose leaf paper with all its accessories of subject dividers etc might be worth a mention for its use in all those school projects. I remember that starting to use ring binders marked the transition to sixth form, as we had only used exercise books before then for our work.

Great Post Thanks Heaps I will use it with my staff.
I am sure that there would have been complaints at every stage! "Those Blessed pencils replacing our Slates!! What is the world coming to!"
I wonder when the cane came into play, a DEDICATED device for corporal punishment. Probably when the Horn-books became too hard to use, the Ferules too costly to replace, or the photocopiers left to much of a paper trail.
I think an equally great post topic would be when the different technologies STOPPED being used. This could be useful as I am sure I have seen a few a boxes of Horn-Books around one of schools I have been in (right beside the Beta video player and Laserdisc player)
Thanks again, I will refer encourage teachers to visit your Blog.
Regards, Rolfe (@rolfek)

Your article was wonderfrul reading, and for me personally a trip down memory lane. One correction on your timeline: You show PLATO as being introduced in 1980, that's 10 year's too late; it was introduced to schools in Urbana, IL as early as 1970. I personally sold PLATO to the DoD in 1976.

Apple introduced one of the first "hand-held" devices back in the mid-80's (Navigator?) that was the precursor to the PDA's that finally made it's way into schools in the late 80's and early 90's.

EdTech

April 27, 2011 at 11:09 pm

I am not certain about all of the technologies on this time line, but I can say for certain that I was using simple wireless IR keypad response cards from Turning Technologies back in 2004 and a wired not as easy to use system from Audience Response Systems Inc. back in 1995. ARS company history has them beginning in 1984. Also, SMART Technologies Inc., history states that "The company introduced the world’s first interactive whiteboard in 1991". While I am not certain of how interactive the board might have been back then, I was using more of a digitizing non projected board, the Microfield Graphics Softboard, back in 1995. I was definitely well liked at the time, since the electronic notebook could be projected and would record every pen stroke in real-time so that you could rewind, playback and share exactly what was written and review at your own pace step by step how problems were worked through.

L. Schroeder

April 29, 2011 at 10:53 pm

Yes, please add the typewriter – manual, electric, and electric with correction options all seemed like big additions. And please, add the "Ditto" machine! Purple ink, on paper, and easily smudge on clothing. If I think hard, I can smell it!
Somewhere about the time of the overhead projector, there was a huge machine called an opaque projector that did not require transparencies. You just rolled what you wanted to project under the lamp and made sure to move on before it melted or scorched. Today that's been replaced with the "Document viewer" which must be attached to a computer and is shown with software similar to that used for Power Points. It is referred to as an "Elmo" in the area where I now teach. Correction, taught!
I taught my last class today and will join the ranks of retired as soon as I get my grades turned in. I'm having too much fun with all the new technology so I don't want to quit, but my school/department had other ideas.

When I was in grade school my teacher would make copies on a pan with a jelly-like substance in it. The teacher would hand write the test and somehow by placing it on the jellied substance, many copies were made by hand pressing paper on it. Never knew what waS called but all copies were in purple.

It was the early precursor to the “purple ditto machine” which was all the rage in 1968 when i began teaching. But the machine, while using the same basic technology for reproducing something as the pan-like device you describe (and which my one room country school teacher also used in the 1950s) the ditto machine literally produce copy after copy mechanically. A real labor saving device for teachers who didn’t know any better way to teach than using worksheets!

I have just come across your blog and really enjoyed reading it, I liked the technology time line. I immediately thought of audio technology and thought you might like to know about StoryPhones. My husband and I developed this innovative audio system several years ago and StoryPhones are now being used in schools throughout the UK and abroad. StoryPhones is the next step on from CD listening centres and also goes beyond a normal MP3 player with remote control for group listening, automatic play, abitlity to disable function buttons, multiway usb hub,supporting software and a download store. It has so many features, and our website has a page which lists all of these http://www.storyphones.co.uk/products/storyphones-system.php.

How about a typewriter? Can it be included there? I had Olivetti’s one actually..

jimlerman

April 19, 2012 at 3:24 pm

Great List!
The 1925 “film projector” is misnamed. It is a filmstrip projector. Film projectors show movies, filmstrip projectors show still images on a strip of film.
I second the addition of the typewriter, phonograph, ditto machine,and the photocopier.
Other things to consider adding: the opaque projector (forerunner of today’s document cams), laser disc player, reel-to-reel tape recorder, cassette tape recorder, movie projector (8mm and 16 mm), VCR, and the fountain pen.

Joris Steenbakkers

April 20, 2012 at 2:33 pm

Serious games are missing in the overview, I’d say… For example Revolution rpg-game based working with the Neverwinter Nights engine, developed by MUI, but there are more examples, although e.g. Civilization III (that’s originally an entertainment strategy game which can be (and was) used in some classes to teach history. Revolution was used to teach children about the American revolution from the perspective of the societal classes in those times (google it yourself if you’d like)

I remember around 1985 the original “datashow”: a transparent screen receiving data fom a PC and put over the table of an overhead projector. The image, really not bright, was projected like moderns multimedia projectors.

Christina Mason

June 5, 2012 at 10:31 pm

Hello Mr. Dunn. I am a student at the University of South Alabama majoring in Elementary Education. I am currently enrolled in Dr. John Strange’s EDM 310 class which is teaching me the many skills and benefits of using technology in the classroom. I found your post to be entertaining (it was fun and kind of scary to see how many of the first teaching tools I was familiar with), informative, and enlightening. I have posted a link to your post, as well as the edudemic.com website, on my class blog. Please feel free to check it out some time at http://masonchristinaedm310.blogspot.com/. Thank you for an eye opening visual of technology’s evolution.

Great timeline!! I’m doing a project for school, do you mind if I use some of your timeline in my presentation? (proper credit will be given of course!) Thanks!!

Gianna

July 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm

I remember using the Reading Accelerator in grade school, but I think we selected reading selections printed on a sort of flexible cardboard, which were inserted I to the Accelerator. The selections were color coded, according to difficulty level.

Thanks, Jeff. Absolutely brilliant. I love the images. Do you mind if we use the content here for a professional development offering we’ve got coming up? We want to make posters out of the tools and have folks date the technology. Is that alright?

Very interesting. At least you thought of things that many people would not describe as “technological”. Most people think of technology as being the latest electronic device & don’t think about things like pens, slates, paper and liquid paper as technology. I have just watched a video on YouTube & technology & education. It mentioned nothing prior to the 1980’s, to me this person basically sees that the education system had no technology prior to videos, overhead projectors and photocopiers!

LOVE this!! Very informative to see how far the world has come in such a short time! I remember the purple ink mimeograph machines of the 1970’s…before copy machines. And my WANG computer in the 1980’s…keyboard and hard drive all in one “box”. Students of today do not know how good they have it.Reputation Management

I am surprised you don’t have more technology from ancient classrooms. For example: the abacus, counting boards, Babylonian cuneiform tablets, and roman wax tablets with writing styles.

Noah

December 9, 2012 at 2:42 pm

The question is, how accurate is the date going to be for those? For certain, you can include the approximate date, but it isn’t guaranteed to even be withing a hundred years for most of the examples you provided. And, also, while those are all important to educational development, the only place the abacus is used is in select Japanese elementary schools. The others are only displayed in museums.

A small correction regarding the date related to the world’s first interactive whiteboard. It was 1991 – not 1999 as you have noted. SMART Technologies is the company that achieved this milestone and the popular product is the SMART Board interactive whiteboard – currently installed in over 2.3 million classrooms around the world.